


Stitch Me Up Right

by sirsable



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Avengers Family, Avengers Tower, Captain America Sam Wilson, Clothing design as flirting, Fashion Designer Steve Rogers, Flirting, Fluff, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Romance, Sassy Steve Rogers, Shrinkyclinks Fest 2019, Touch-Starved Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, based on a prompt, non-canon compliant, sfw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 01:15:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18510943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirsable/pseuds/sirsable
Summary: The Avengers have a new fashion designer and suddenly Bucky has alotof problems with his suit.Written for the Shrinkyclinks Fest 2019.





	Stitch Me Up Right

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bangyababy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bangyababy/gifts).



> Written for the Shrinkyclink Fest 2019, Prompt #45 by [bangyababy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bangyababy): "WS!Bucky as part of the Avengers and Steve as their costume designer. Rom-com. Maybe Bucky keeps purposely ripping his suit or something so he has a reason to go see Steve?"
> 
> Originally I meant for this to be rated E or at least M, but then it accidentally got fluffy and this is what happened. x_x I hope you like it anyway?
> 
> Beta by the ever-graceful [coldwinterrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldwinterrose). Any mistakes left are my own. <3

He thought he noticed it when he was gearing up, but about halfway to the drop-off point for their latest mission, Bucky realizes that it’s not just in his head.

“Something’s wrong with my suit.” It galls him to have to say it because it feels a little like whining, and the Winter Soldier doesn’t complain about his clothes while he’s getting dressed. But at the same time, he’s a trained operative who relies on his gear to keep him and his team alive—and that includes his suit. Which is… well, malfunctioning isn’t quite the word for it, but it’s definitely not up to snuff.

“Looks fine to me,” Clint says, kneeling to tighten the buckles on his own boots.

“Something’s wrong with yours too,” Bucky point out. He cocks his head to the side, considering. “What’s going on with your…” Bucky gestures vaguely, “chest?”

“Ah, man, right! That,” Clint taps his right pec, which has a wide panel of dark purple curving toward his ribs, “is a guard, in case I’m dumb enough to get my stance wrong and the string snaps at me. Then won’t tear up my clothes or flay the skin off my body!”

“And you’re in danger of that?” Bucky raises his eyebrows because Clint is probably one of the best snipers in the world, and definitely the best archer. He could probably accurately shoot a bow in his sleep.

“Not really. Well, maybe. Depends. Does it need to be a trick shot?” he shakes his head like he’s trying to get his thoughts to land in the correct order. “Look, it doesn’t matter—it’s the thought that counts. It doesn’t slow me down, it’s built to protect me, and it’s a cool splash of color. I like it. New guy knows what’s he’s about.”

New guy?

He’s in for another shock when he finds Natasha, who’s already waiting in the quinjet when he loads into it. Her catsuit is off—thicker, a little, and the top actually closes over the soft target of her chest, all sleek lines where before she’d been halfway to a BDSM model. It’s… different.

“I can’t see your breasts,” he says blankly. He’d even started to think that the zipper to her catsuit couldn’t physically close all the way.

Natasha smirks at him, arms across her chest. “They’re still there, tiger, but I didn’t realize you’d been looking.”

“No, I…” Bucky frowns at himself. Sometimes he wonders if it wouldn’t be easier to slide back into the Winter Soldier’s mindset a little more. Not the killing part, but the part that told him to be silent. Seen, not heard. Waiting for orders, or to execute them. But no, part of being a normal human being is communicating, and that means using his words when he can. He promised his therapist. 

“Your suit is different,” he settles on. “It looks good. Comfortable. Less… drafty.”

“I always hated zipping things up all the way. Too many years with a collar around your neck does that to you. But the designer was kind enough to offer a different fabric instead. I can breathe, and my breasts make a less conspicuous target in the dark.” She smiles serenely. 

Designer? Bucky had never really put any thought into who created their suits. Costumes? Gear. He’s kind of assumed that job went to Tony and/or JARVIS. They made Tony’s suits, after all, and Tony provided a hefty amount of custom weaponry and assorted gadgets. But Natasha just implied that hers had been custom-made. And not by Tony, or she would have just said his name.

“Does yours feel odd?” he asks Sam as they lift off.

“Odd how? I mean, it takes a little getting used to, but the thing fits like a glove. Compression in the legs is way better than the old one.” Sam extends his legs like it’ll actually show what he means. “So it feels tighter, but I’ve still got full mobility. No idea how he does it.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“Something got your underwear in a bunch?” Tony laughs as they load back into the quinjet. The mission itself went well—a simple infiltration and extraction, but Bucky was glad that his position this time was mostly support. Everyone else seems happy with their new costumes but, as Tony has so gleefully pointed out, there is something unacceptably wrong with Bucky’s.

“Pants,” he grunts. “They’re too… tight.”

The Winter Soldier never complained about his gear, but the Winter Soldier was also never issued gear that tried to crawl up his ass and squeeze the life out of his thighs. And no one else seems to be having a similar problem.

“Well, at least they make your ass look nice,” Tony tells him cheerfully, and then pantomimes patting him on the back from a safe half a foot away. “If it bothers you that much, go and talk to the guy. Everyone else did.”

Bucky frowns. Why was he left out of the loop?

“You refused to respond to the memo,” Natasha snorts. He’d be annoyed at how easy he is to read, except that he wasn’t particularly trying to hide his thoughts and also this is _Natasha_. If she _hadn’t_ picked up on his thought process, it would be an insult to his teaching. “I bet you trashed all the reschedule times, too.”

“JARVIS can help you make a new appointment, if you want,” Tony offers. “If you’re gonna walk with a hitch in your step, might as well be for all the right reasons.” He winks broadly.

Bucky ignores him entirely as he settles into his seat, leaning back and preparing to get some rest. He’ll wait until after dinner to get JARVIS to help him sort it out _in private_. Just because the idea is a sound one is no reason to let Tony gloat.  
  


* * *

  
  
He was told to bring his suit, wear underwear and a tight shirt, and show up at 1300 hours. So here he is, standing outside a door labeled “Studio 3” at 1259, clothes in his arms and no idea what to expect. He knows the designer is male, and that his last name is Rogers. Privately, Bucky thinks he should expect someone in designer clothes, maybe willowy and a little effeminate like the Queer Eye guys he watches with Clint. Maybe a little bit snooty about the sweats he’s wearing, which even Bucky knows aren’t the height of fashion. But he’s an assassin, not a runway model. He just wants his clothes to be functional and not ride up his ass, and that’s what he’s going to say when he drops these off and asks for them to be fixed. If he’s as good as they say, it shouldn’t be a problem, right?

He knocks as soon as the clock turns over to 1300, and fifteen seconds later the door swings open.

“Come in,” Rogers says briskly, already walking away from him. Bucky blinks and closes the door behind him, taking in the room as he strides through. Rogers himself is almost a foot shorter than him, with a mop of blond hair and a hassled expression. He peers at Bucky from behind thick, horn-rimmed glasses, bangs kept out of his face with a handful of hair clips that Bucky is fairly certain don’t match. And his clothes… Well, at least Bucky wasn’t too far off there. The style is spare but functional: sleeves stop just past his elbow to keep his hands free; soft boaters with splashes of color on his sockless feet; capri pants just tight enough that they won’t catch on anything; tape measure around his neck. But he’s too angular to be effeminate, too spare to be called willowy; he doesn’t look like he gives a shit about what Bucky is wearing, and other than the clothes, he’s nothing like what Bucky expected to find.

 _Fuck_ , Bucky thinks as Rogers glares up at him, _He’s beautiful._

“JARVIS said the pants don’t fit right on these?” He has to physically put his hands on the clothes in Bucky’s arms before he realizes the designer wants them. Bucky hands them over sheepishly, shuffling his feet but keeping his expression blank.

“Yes. They’re short in the… in the middle,” he fumbles, gesturing vaguely. For a second, he thinks that Rogers smiles, but it’s covered quickly by a disapproving scowl.

“If you’d shown up for the measurement and fitting sessions, this wouldn’t be a problem.” He shakes out the pants and hold them up, eyeing them critically. “Even Stark showed up. Talked my ear off and tried to draw on every solid surface, but he was here.”

“I thought Stark builds his own suits,” Bucky is startled into saying.

“The Iron Man armor, yes. But he does wear something inside it, you know. Nothing fancy, but I suspect he wanted to feel included since he’s the one paying me. I made it amazing anyway.” Rogers cocks his hip to the side and leans against a heavy table, arms folded across his chest. “Now, strip.”

There’s a full second where they stare at each other, Bucky blankly and Rogers expectantly.

“I can’t take accurate measurements if you’re wearing clothing,” he explains with exaggerated patience, taking the tailor’s tape from around his shoulders. “For normal stuff, close enough would be fine, but this is something your life is gonna depend on, so the more accurate the better since I’ve got you here in the flesh instead of guessing your measurements off old clothing and videos. So. Chop, chop!”

Logically, what he’s asking for makes sense. But Bucky’s hands still hesitate when they come to rest at his waistband.

“Didn’t expect an Avenger to be modest,” Rogers snorts. “I do this dozens of times a month for all kinds of body shapes, so trust me when I tell you that this isn’t weird for me at all. Strictly professional touch; not a single lawsuit or even complaint. JARVIS, tell him.”

“Mister Rogers has an impeccable record and reputation, and has fitted sir and Miss Potts personally,” JARVIS recites dutifully.

Rogers winces. “Thanks, but I’ll thank you even more to call me Steve, J.”

“Of course, Mister Rogers.”

“Of all the things to program him with, a sense of humor had to be on the list,” Steve mutters. He waves a hand vaguely at Bucky’s pants. “You heard the AI: impeccable reputation.”

Bucky fights the urge to squirm. “I’d rather not. I don’t like… being looked at. Like a thing.”

There was a reason he didn’t show up to any of the earlier sessions, after all. He hates doctors, too, but he puts up with them on the rare occasions it can’t be avoided. It probably helps that he’s usually woozy because of blood loss at that point. And there’s one nurse in particular who’s very soothing to be around and can make things tolerable. But he still hates it—it reminds him of Hydra and all those techs poking and prodding and talking over him like he’s another instrument.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

Bucky can feel his eyebrows draw together in what Sam and Clint have dubbed his ‘murder-face’ but that sometimes happens, as now, during times of stress. He’s told that it’s intimidating whether he means it to be or not, but it doesn’t seem to have any effect on Steve, who’s already shucking his stylish blazer.

“Hey, I get it. I was in and out of hospitals for a really long time as a kid. Bad heart, bad lungs, bad back. Makes for a lot of people staring at you, and it gets creepy after a while. Like your body is there but _you_ don’t exist, right? With all _that_ glory—” he gestures to his left arm for emphasis “—and given your history, it was probably a million times worse. But we’re adults and sometimes we gotta do shit. You want me to protect you, so I gotta do some measuring. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try and make it a little easier on you. We got all the same parts and I wore underwear today, so I can be just as vulnerable as you if you want. I bet none of your doctors ever got that informal, huh?”

“You’re crazy,” Bucky observes flatly. “Your lack of clothing does nothing to alter my own.”

“Nope,” Steve replies cheerfully. “But it’s what I can offer. You want me in my skin or not? It ain’t pretty under here, so you gotta decide before I chicken out. Didn’t even let my last boyfriend see me shirtless, so you oughta feel special.” The more he talks, the broader his accent gets. Less classic Manhattan and more deep Brooklyn. It’s comforting, in a way. Makes it hard to think he’s anywhere else.

“You don’t have to do that. I can… Will it take long?” His fingers find the hem of the hoodie he’s wearing.

“I can be quick. Couple minutes, maybe. And I can talk to you. Wanna know how I got Stark back for drawing all over my pattern tables?”

“Not unless it was by putting powder in his pants,” Bucky says, finally pulling his shirt over his head. He pushes his pants aside with one foot and looks to the ceiling while Steve gets busy measuring, both trying to pay attention but not letting himself think too hard about it.

“Damn, I should’a. I’ll ask you for advice next time, huh?”

Next time. Bucky kind of like the sound of that. And he doesn’t shy away from Steve’s touch the way he thought he would. It could be because the other man is so slight—or, more likely, the gentle but confident way he handles Bucky—but something about Steve puts him at ease instead of making his skin crawl. And the designer is good about touching his right elbow a moment before moving on, to let him know he’ll soon touch a different part of his body.

“You know I wanted to join the Army?” Steve asks as he loops the tape around Bucky’s chest.

“Ain’t all it’s made out to be.”

“I know, but my pop was Army, and I wanted to help people. I drank a helluva a lot of milk hoping it’d fix me up so’s I could pass.”

Bucky snorts at the image of an even smaller Steve chugging down bottles of milk.

“As you can see, it didn’t really work.” He offers a dry smile, gaze flicking up to meet Bucky’s as he moves the tape down to his waist. 

“And now you make super-suits,” Bucky fills in, decidedly _not_ blushing.

“Something like that.” Bucky looks over his head and to a wall with swatches of fabric and elaborate sketches pinned all over it. Some of them are so detailed that they look more like blueprints than fashion designs. “Pepper calls them uniforms, though. Not that there’s anything unified about them. Watch out, I’m gonna have to measure your inseam.”

“Can’t you just change all the designs so they _are_ uniform?” Bucky asks, more to distract himself than from any real curiosity.

“I mean—yeah, I could.” He can hear the shrug in Steve’s voice, even if he hadn’t been looking at him. “But there’s already a lot of positive PR on you as individuals, and it doesn’t look like you’re adding new recruits or splitting into secondary teams any time soon. For people like Tony and Sam, individual marketing is actually a huge boon to the Avengers name, so it’s better to keep you all a little separate.”

“Politics,” Bucky snorts derisively.

“Yeah. Weird, huh? But it’ll be harder to help folks if no one knows they can trust you, so I can’t just change your looks overnight. I did alter a few things in the latest designs, and I’ve already started planning a second set for field work; then the ones you’re wearing now can be used for PR instead. Whoever came up with your stuff before sure as hell didn’t think about covering weak points with armor. When anyone even _had_ armor.”

“Most of us didn’t have protection when we were trained,” Bucky defends stiffly.

“Yeah, well they didn’t have penicillin in the Dark Ages, but we use it now that we got it, don’t we? It’s around, you got access to it—no-brainer. No way in hell I’m sending a bunch of people out to fight Nazis with death lasers wearing only lycra and foam. I don’t care if you _are_ enhanced, there’s no reason not to take a few precautions. Fuck that.”

“You’re very angry,” Bucky marvels. Steve snorts rudely, tapping the outside of his knee to get him to stand up straight again.

“I’m _opinionated_ ,” Steve corrects. “And I take my job seriously. There, you’re done.”

Bucky’s thrown for a moment by the non-sequitur, but Steve is already slinging the tape measure back around his neck and standing up. 

“You can get dressed again. Gimme a second to write some stuff down, and then I’ll take any requests you’ve got for design.” He goes to perch on a stool at the heavy table, dragging over a notebook and pencil and scribbling industriously. Bucky drags his pants on first, wondering at how easy it was. Maybe he’s more okay with this kind of thing than he thought. _Or,_ part of him whispers, _maybe it’s because of a certain cute designer._

“I get to make requests?” Bucky asks instead of examining things further. He’ll have time for that later.

“Sure. Doesn’t mean I’ll do it, but there’s no harm in asking. Romanov wanted me to keep her heels. No idea why, but she can fight in them just fine so I didn’t see why not. Turned down Barton’s cupholder, though.”

It figures that Clint would ask for something bizarre like a cupholder. “Can you do something about covering up my arm?”

Steve turns to look at him critically, then holds out a hand. Bucky stupidly gives him his flesh hand, to which Steve raises a brow. Right, no, of course. Steve wants to see what it’s working with. He corrects his error hastily, putting his metal hand palm-up atop Steve’s. He doesn’t get sensation the same way through the prosthetic, but he _can_ feel, and there’s something almost electric in the way the smaller man carefully traces the plates and presses at his wrist and forearm. Assessing but not clinical.

“Make a fist for me? And rotate like this.”

Bucky does so obediently, and finally Steve pats his wrist and lets go.

“Trying to cover it up with any kind of fabric will just end with fibers stuck in the plates and a torn-up sleeve. Not to mention that your arm might overheat,” he frowns. Bucky likes the way Steve says ‘your arm’ instead of ‘the arm.’ He’s so used to thinking of it like something alien grafted to his body that sometimes it’s hard to remember that he’s had it longer than the original limb. “But plastic or ceramic will hinder your mobility. I’m guessing you and Tony vetoed a paint job. And using temporary paint will be a bitch to apply and remove every time. Hm. Inconvenient.” He grabs his pencil from the table and twirls it between his long fingers. “It’s a challenge. I like it.”

Well, _now_ Bucky is jealous of his own arm.

“I need to think about this. Come back next week to pick up your new uniform. And as much as I hate to do it, I’ll have your old one delivered for use in the meantime.” He nods decisively and turns back around, hunching over his notepad, pencil flying across the page. Bucky stands there for a full minute before he realizes that he’s been dismissed, or at least forgotten about in some kind of artistic frenzy.

“Uh… thank you,” he says awkwardly, because it seems like the thing to do.

Steve just gives him a thumbs-up over his shoulder, fingers already smudged with graphite.  
  


* * *

  
  
It’s been four weeks since he’s seen the designer. He’s thought about him at least once a day since then, and dreamed about him three different times. It’s a little bit ridiculous. In his defense, though, having met the person who made his new ‘uniform’ apparently makes a difference in how he views actually _wearing_ it. Not since he first joined the Army back in ’42 has he worn a uniform with any sense of pride, but he does now. Because someone _made_ this for him. For _him_. To, as Steve put it, protect him.

“You keep touching yourself and it’s getting kind of creepy, man,” Sam complains. Bucky looks up and glares at him.

“He’s not touching _himself_ ; he’s touching his _pants_ ,” Clint corrects. “I think. Are the new ones really that great? Lemme feel.” There’s a scuffle as Bucky tries to fend him off and Clint gamely tries to get past him to cop a feel at his leg. Or his pants, but they’re _on_ him right now, goddamit.

“Only two times I’ve ever seen someone get so moony-eyed over clothes,” Natasha declares. “When he’s gay or when someone he likes picked them out for him. So which is it, Barnes?”

“Both is an answer,” Clint adds, looking far too invested for Bucky’s good.

“Hey, that’s stereotyping,” Sam protests in the background, but Bucky knows better. There are a million reasons why humans make all kinds of expressions, but this is Natasha’s way of saying she thinks she already knows the answer and she’s just baiting it out of him. Which is ridiculous. 

Well, he’s queer. Bi, he thinks it’s called now. So she’s right on that count. But saying that someone he likes picked his clothes is inaccurate, and he’ll be sure to rub it in her face later. Because no one _picked_ Bucky’s clothes for him—they’re his _uniform_. If anything, SHIELD picked his clothes. 

…But that’s not exactly right anymore, is it? Because since Steve got hired it seems like he’s been making a lot of executive decisions on how to dress the team. Except, it’s his _job_ to make things that fit well and look good and are highly functional in the field. It’s not like he did Bucky’s _special_. Even if he was kind and gentle under that brisk exterior, and he ended up going out of his way to fulfill the small list of requests Bucky sent him in a handwritten note later. It’s possible Bucky kept the scrawled reply Steve sent instead of an email, but if he _did_ then it’s only because handwritten correspondence is rare these days, and maybe he wants to savor that someone else can appreciate that. And he probably only had those dreams because he’s wearing Steve’s handiwork whenever he goes out in the field, which has been on the regular lately for some low-risk but good-for-public-image jobs. Plus, the blond even designed a special mesh to cut the glare on Bucky’s arm, and no one’s ever done something so nice, even as part of their job—

Oh, shit.

Natasha is completely, absolutely, 100% correct. Bucky’s got a crush on Rogers, and she’ll never let him live it down.  
  


* * *

  
  
“So what, _exactly_ , happened?” Steve asks. He frowns severely at the fabric in his hands like it’s offended him on a personal level. Maybe it has—hell if Bucky knows.

“Iron Man blasted a hole through the hull and Cap air-dropped me. I had to use the arm to break my fall—”

“This definitely isn’t from an abrasion,” Steve mutters.

“—and then I engaged directly with the enemy. Hostiles carried firearms and stun batons—”

“Who the hell uses firearms while they’re in a giant metal tube?”

Bucky tends to agree. “—and after neutralizing them, I continued to the control room. Widow was to meet me with explosives.”

“Yeah, that display was something else. CNN got some good shots of it, but you look fine so nothing should have made a mess like _this_. You’re okay, right?”

Bucky pauses in his report. “Uh. Yes, thank you.”

Steve nods and goes back to scowling at Bucky’s uniform. “Did you come into direct contact with a significant source of heat? Concentrated heat, along the lines of a blowtorch or maybe molten metal? That’d certainly do it.”

Bucky has to replay most of the mission in his head while Steve waits impatiently for an answer.

“A hostile made direct contact with a stun baton,” he ventures.

“That shouldn’t’ve made a difference,” Steve growls, frustrated. “The fabric shouldn’t melt like this. If it melts, it risks gunking up the plates in your arm, which risks slowing you down, which risks getting you killed.”

“Any fabric slows people down, but I’d still rather not fight naked. Besides, it’s not your fault,” Bucky points out. Rather reasonably, he thinks. But Steve just scowls harder.

“I _made_ this fabric. It should not just _melt_ like this. It’s supposed to hold up to all kinds of things. It should be able to take everything short of a death-laser to the face. Maybe the problem is the conduciveness of the metal. Or the difference in hardness. It’s possible to get more friction and more heat in your arm than against flesh.” He flings the top onto the table and picks up a pencil, tapping it against his lower lip distractingly. Bucky wonders if he even knows he’s doing it, or how sinful his mouth looks like that.

“If you see something that might have caused this to melt when you review your footage, tell me. Otherwise… hm. Do you have time to come by so I can gather more data on your arm? I used what Stark was willing to release, but it’s not like he had outfitting you in mind. Come by… say, tomorrow at 1400. Assuming you’re free, of course.”

“I am,” Bucky says instantly, eyes still on Steve’s lips. He has no idea if it’s actually true, but he’ll make it so if he needs to. So Steve can do his job properly, he tells himself. And so he can have a functional uniform again.

Right.  
  


* * *

  
  
“Where are you going?” Clint calls after him. Bucky slams his locker shut and grabs his suit top from the bench, waving it in the air by way of answer. “Aw, man, you’re not even gonna wash it first? That’s disgusting even for me, Barnes!”

Joke’s on Clint, because this is his spare and it _has_ been washed, right after he finished widening a hole through the arm with a nail and realized that the fastest way to get rid of the metal flakes would be to toss it in a washing machine. But he doesn’t bother to reply because 1) It’s none of Clint’s business, and 2) He’ll just slow Bucky down by talking to him if he does. He puts his hair up while he’s in the elevator and bounces on the balls of his feet, recognizing the subtle fizz of happiness as the floors tick by. It’s still weird to think that he _can_ be happy, but his therapist says that he’s allowed to have nice feelings and so Bucky is going to pursue his no matter how many arch looks Natasha and Clint and Sam throw in his direction. Somehow, Tony’s managed to remain completely oblivious to the reason Bucky’s suit suffers damage more regularly than anyone else’s. Or maybe he enjoys the challenge as much as Steve seems to. Certainly, every time Bucky goes in to get something repaired or altered, it’s that much harder to damage his things ‘accidentally’ for the next time.

“JARVIS told me you were coming,” Steve informs him in the hall. The door to Studio 3 is already open, Steve doing his best to loom in the doorway. He holds out an expectant hand and immediately disappears into the room as soon as Bucky hands it over. Bucky follows behind him like a puppy, gaze roaming to take in any new changes to the space since he’d been there last. One of the design walls is blank, he notes, which means Steve just finished one of his big projects. And there’s a new pile of fabric mounded underneath a table, along with stacks of what he guesses are portfolios for models.

“What is this? What is _this_?!” Steve stops so abruptly that Bucky nearly runs into him, curving his spine to avoid collision by a mere hair’s-breadth. Steve has one hand threaded through the uniform shirt, waving at Bucky emphatically through the hole in the armpit. It had been the only place he’d been able to get enough leverage to yank properly, and the first thread to pop. Damn thing took him a solid fifteen minutes to work a rip big enough to where he wouldn’t feel silly bringing it in, and it took three bent nails and added help of his metal arm to get that way.

So, of course, he puts on his most innocent face and shrugs. “A hole?”

“A hole? A _hole_?!” Steve looks like he’s one step away from stomping his feet in frustration. Bucky would feel bad except for how cute it is. “Bucky, this hole is at the axilla. That’s your _armpit_. As in, under your _arm_.” Steve raises both of his and fails them in emphasis. “Tell me, were you attacking an enemy while doing your best impression of a sign at a used car dealership? No, don’t answer that because I _know_ you weren’t. So then _how_ , pray-tell, did this happen?”

Steve, Bucky has learned, is kind of a drama queen when he wants to be. For instance, right now, when he tosses the offending garment on a table and flings himself after it. But he does pick up a pencil right after that, and he starts flipping in his hand, which is a habit Bucky has learned means he’s engaged or interested in something. Still a win, then.

“I’m not sure,” he lies, diligently keeping eye contact no matter how much he wants to look away.

“Not sure, he says,” Steve mutters. “Not sure. You’re _not sure_ how something or someone got up under your guard, apparently…” He picks up the shirt to examine it more closely. “…hooked something into the fabric at the _exact_ weakest point, and then pulled with at least enough force to move a small car?”

Bucky keeps his expression carefully neutral and shakes his head.

“Is this like how you’re ‘not sure’ why _only_ the cuffs of your tac-pants ripped last week? Or how you’re ‘not sure’ what happened to the collar of your jacket?”

The cuffs had honestly been an accident, but a fortuitous one. He thinks that maybe it happened while he’d been literally kicking an alien in the teeth. And he might have gotten over-enthusiastic with the jacket collar, because he’d pulled it almost all the way off before he stopped. “Yes,” he reports faithfully.

“Do you know how much work goes into these? You’re a soldier; you know there are all manner of vital things under here. Do you understand how much of a challenge it is to protect what amounts to a natural weak point in any armor? The articulation around your shoulder is tricky in any given situation, but especially for people as athletic as the Avengers. You have to be able to punch, to aim, to shoot, to dodge, all with enhanced power and timing, in any given combination, at any given time. A normal shirt pattern has a minimum of one and a standard of _four_ seams to attach the sleeve to the torso and to make the angle optimal for movement. But! But. Seams are both points of reinforcement _and_ of structural weakness. So the question is how and where to place any seams to maximize movement while best preserving the integrity of the fabric and viability of the design? And what _kind_ of seams to use? What will least get in your way while still being tough enough to stand up to the kind of abuse you and the team subject your gear to on a regular basis? Yet I persevere.”

Okay, Bucky actually feels a little bad now. He knows that Steve takes his work very seriously. That he likes the challenge and that he likes being useful. He knows that he’d been hired because he genuinely cares about the team and the people they can help, and not for the money or the glory of being employed by Stark. Sometimes it’s easy to forget, because unlike Stark and Banner in their high-tech lab, surrounded by machinery and complex diagrams and disgustingly shiny, sleek computers, Steve’s studio brims with color and natural light and hand-drawn sketches on every surface. But he still works hard in his own way to keep the team in shape to keep fighting, both on the field and off it, as can be attested by the secondary ‘camera-ready’ uniforms they all keep and the ‘formal Avengers-wear’ Steve trotted out for a State dinner just last month. He’s half-armorer, half-PR as far as Bucky is concerned. And here he is, literally ripping up Steve’s hard work. God, he feels like a heel.

“I design and redesign; create and recreate. I watch clips of your previous encounters and have JARVIS analyze sparring sessions so I can maximize flexibility and minimize interference. My clothes are specifically engineered to fit you like a second skin and protect you like an oyster protects a pearl. And still, _you’re not sure_ how something snagged and ripped the _only_ weak point in this one, well-protected location, without harming _any other part of you_?” Steve’s eyebrows are likely to disappear into his hairline at this point. “You’re _not_ hurt, are you?”

“Yes! I mean, no. No, I’m not hurt. But I don’t know how it happened.” Oh, Jesus. The lie is dying right there on his tongue.

“Hmph. Well, there’s that, at least.”

Somehow, Steve being mollified by the lack of harm to Bucky’s person just makes him feel worse. “I’m sorry,” he adds meekly. More than seventy years since anything close to an apology has passed his lips and this blond slip of a thing gets him to say it just by frowning hard and asking if he’s hurt. So much for a fearsome reputation.

“I’ll give you the chance to make it up to me,” Steve declares, setting his pencil down on the table with a decisive _click_. “By taking me out to dinner.”

Bucky’s already nodding along with whatever Steve wants before he even knows what he’s agreeing to. It takes a handful of seconds for the words to properly penetrate his brain. “What? I mean, yes, I will. What…?”

“I don’t know how you did it back in the day, but in the twenty-first century, adults ask people they like on dates. Not consistently undo their hard work in an effort to see more of them,” Steve informs him. “I’m allergic to shellfish, cherries, and most flower pollen; I’m fond of Italian food; and I _don’t_ put out on the first date. One base per night, that’s the fastest I’ll go, and only if I _really_ like you. So don’t disappoint me.”

Bucky nods dumbly, already filing all the information away for later. Except he’s not really sure what baseball has to do with any of it. “Sure. But, um. What do bases have to do with dating?”

Steve smirks and leans back against the table, body language falling open and confident and Bucky has to work to keep his jaw shut. “I guess you’ll have to hit a home run and find out.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm disappointed in myself that there's no smut. D: Please forgive me.
> 
> I like pretending people want to talk to me on tumblr [@sablessx](https://sablessx.tumblr.com/).


End file.
